Music for a collapsing world

Go ahead and admit it.

Things don't feel right. They haven't for a while. A new Supreme Court nomination has sparked talk, whether grounded in reality or not, of the repealing of people's rights. The NATO alliance might actually fracture. Policies have been enacted that threaten the economic equivalent of a Mad Max future and people of all social strata are just reveling in it. Conflict and polarization are omnipresent in nearly every form of media, leading one to believe that soon, very soon, daily encounters with others will begin with the question, "You red or blue?"

Believe me. In the past year and a half, I've learned a little something about how things fall apart.

These are the times of the writer. This is when writers, often sitting back in a corner, just watching the game unfold and analyzing it in quiet, offer texts of penetrating insight and chilling warnings. They act as the great mirrors, holding themselves up to society and showing us the good, the bad, and the ugly...challenging us to see if our perceptions stack up to the reality. Often, the casual reader recoils and scoffs, "That's so depressing!" Then as the first crumbles of social concrete sprinkle to the ground, the writers, once shunned as cynics unproductive to the conversation, shrug and smirk, "told ya." It's times like these that have brought us George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

They also bring us great music as musicians offer similar observations. So if the world is collapsing, I say why not give it a great soundtrack. I now tender a list of what to listen to while it all comes apart:

Last September, Gary Numan (pictured above) released his album, Savage (Songs from a Broken World). He's best known for his early work with Tubeway Army and his single, "Cars," but Numan has a long legacy of sophisticated song writing and compelling, marvelously discordant melodies. Savage is a concept album, telling the story of a desert world ravaged by climate change. As Numan said:

"It's about a desperate need to survive and they do awful things in order to do so, and some are haunted by what they've done. That desire to be forgiven, along with some discovered remnants of an old religious book, ultimately encourages religion to resurface, and it really goes downhill from there."

Check this track, "My Name is Ruin":





"My name is ruin, my name is vengeance
My name is no one, no one is calling
My name is ruin, my name is heartbreak
My name is loving, but sorrows and darkness"

Another magnificently menacing track is "Mercy." I've listened to it on repeat as I write my book about the College.




"You all remember my pain
Your politics are screaming
You won't know my name or my forgiveness
Mercy's overrated

No Mercy
No Mercy"

In 2007, Nine Inch Nails released Year Zero. By then, Trent Reznor had been well known for deep, moody, and contemplative songs about depression, heartbreak, rage, and the desire to end it all. This time around, he turned his gaze outward and looked at both the political landscape and the world writ large. Year Zero is a concept album beamed from the future as a warning, telling of a United States ruled by a Christian theocracy where it is a citizen's duty to report "immorality." There are obvious themes of the War on Terror and the surveillance powers of the Patriot Act at play in the record. There is also a summation to the album that intimates...but never blatantly states...an all-powerful being bringing an end to the world. There are no survivors...save for perhaps the machines that will carry on to create the same kinds of soundscapes that Trent did.





"In the hour of our twilight...
It will all be said and done...

Shame on us, doomed from the start
May God have mercy on our dirty little hearts
Shame on us, for all we have done
For all we ever were, just zeroes and ones"


Moral of the song? Actions have consequences. Sometimes, global consequences.


I've been listening to Heligoland  from 2010 by Massive Attack.

Fans of the series House no doubt recognize Massive Attack from the song "Teardrop", the show's theme. Massive Attack is an electronica, trip hop duo that often works with several other singers and musicians for MA albums. For example, Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star contributes vocals on Heligoland and there's guitar playing by Adrian Utley from Portishead. Anything involving Portishead is just fine by me. In fact, it's his guitar work that really makes the song, "Saturday Come Slow."





"In the limestone caves
In the south west lands
One time in the kingdom
Believe is on the sand
Saturday comes slow
Do you love me?
Do you love me?
Or is there nothing there?"

Whether they intended it or not, I listen to this record and imagine myself staring out the window as reality changes into something else I can no longer recognize, yet no one else seems to notice it besides me. Perhaps more accurately, others are too afraid to talk about it.

Observe the video for "Atlas Air."




Look at the fear, the paranoia, the suspicion, the switching to gun camera footage. It speaks volumes.

I asked my friend Jason for his take on what would make for fitting additions to this soundtrack. He correctly pointed out that most of Killing Joke's catalog qualifies.




Continuing with the "Mad Max economy" theme, Jason also recommended The Pop Group with "We Are All Prostitutes."




"Capitalism is the most barbaric of all religions." Let the debate ensue...


Even my beloved Duran Duran can dwell on the disintegration of the social fabric, albeit most of those ruminations were confined to their Cold War, punk-influenced debut eponymous album.

"Look now, look all around
There's no sign of life
Voices, another sound..."




"Is There Anyone Out There?" Ahhhh that one brings back "careless memories" of late night teen angst. Not sure it fits the motif, but...no, yeah, I think it does.

"Outside is there anyone out there, anyone else outside
Oh outside love is there anyone out there, anyone else outside
Look out of the window maybe you can call by my name
Another night over babe another light comes on in vain"

Maybe it speaks to the isolation of the human condition. No matter what we're going through, the philosophy of existentialism states that we face it alone for no one else can know your own experience. Despite all our technology, despite "the Internet of all things," we remain utterly disconnected.

And Duran wrote this song in 1980...


David Bowie. Blackstar.

I've made no secret how much I love David Bowie. Likewise, it's obvious to most everyone by now that his final record, Blackstar, was all about him facing his impending death. As Bowie was so often able to do in his legendary career, the work is at once clear and cryptic, all while stirring emotions that the listener might not at first know how to process.





"Look up here, I'm in heaven
I've got scars that can't be seen"

This is a deeply personal work, arguably his most personal. Therefore, I would doubt he was contemplating things on a global scale, and yet...and yet...I believe we can apply this same schema to not simply coming to grips with one's own mortality, but in viewing the ephemeral nature of all that surrounds us. The impermanence of things...

Within this bleak, existential reality, however, Bowie did not neglect the light of hope.





"Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried,
"I'm a blackstar, I'm a blackstar."


That's what we all want in the wake of disaster, isn't it? Something new coming from the ashes.


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